


we could call it even (you could call me babe for the weekend)

by firrehearrt



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: 'tis the damn season, Alternate Universe - Celebrity, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Exes, Exes to Lovers, Exes to Strangers to Lovers to Exes, F/M, Songfic, ts and evermore ruining my life who knew
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-13
Updated: 2020-12-13
Packaged: 2021-03-11 01:42:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,768
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28057074
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/firrehearrt/pseuds/firrehearrt
Summary: Bellarke to 'tis the damn season.
Relationships: Bellamy Blake/Clarke Griffin
Comments: 21
Kudos: 61





	we could call it even (you could call me babe for the weekend)

**Author's Note:**

> This was written in the middle of the night while I stayed up to listen to evermore for the first time. great album, many tears
> 
> Content warning for a mention of a healing knee injury for Raven.

“He doesn’t know you’re back in town.” A simple statement. 

Her heart shouldn’t shatter at the words. 

“I don’t care.”

Disbelief. “Say it with feeling now.”

A scoff from the girl in the imposter's clothes. The designer fabrics, nothing like the flannels and ripped jeans of her days in this town. Makeup, something she once despised. She doesn’t dare leave her apartment without it, now. 

“I don’t care if you don’t believe me, either. I’m over it. It was years ago. We were kids.” She picks at her nails, not strong enough to meet Raven’s gaze, lest it crumble before she’s even sold her lies.

“You were twenty-two.”

“Yeah, and I still bought into bullshit like true love and happiness. Thought he was ‘the one’ and all that.” Clarke crosses her arms over her chest, leaning back in the shitty wooden chair that’s poking her back in a weird place. 

This god damned town doesn’t feel like home anymore. 

But it’s good to see Raven. Good to see her parents. Good to feel a bit more human for the first time in years. 

“Hollywood really did a number on you, huh?” Raven sips from her coffee. She looks good. When Clarke left, Raven was still recovering from her knee injury. She’s not entirely healed, and probably never will be, but she’s learned to live with it. Clarke would say she’s glowing, but that’s much too similar to the bullshit she believed in when she lived here. 

She looks better. That’s all. No need for pretty words and empty promises.

Those have never served her well before. 

“Reality did a number on me. My job has nothing to do with it.” Too close to the truth. Acting was the only thing that offered her an escape, free from ghosts and the family she failed. 

Raven raises an eyebrow in disbelief. “Okay babe.”

Silence, filled with the scent of halfway decent coffee, the scent of pastries she was raised on. Nostalgia fills every corner of this little coffee shop. That characteristic ring of the bell above the door, that once signified her as she carelessly ran inside with friends, dropping textbooks on tables. Stolen kisses by lockers, football jerseys with the name Blake across in bold letters as they screamed from the bleachers. They were high on life, convinced they could do anything. 

Clarke knew better now. 

The bell rings again, quieter than in her memories. A man she doesn’t recognize moves through the door slowly, as though in slow motion. 

Slow, that’s what this town is. 

Thank god she got out. It’s a good thing. Everything she wanted for years. 

Her phone rings with a text from her agent, wondering when she’ll be back. 

She ignores it. 

The drive home is bleak, gray. It doesn’t snow here. But things die, and you’re left with nothing for the winter. Same old, depressing views for the season. Never changing, monotonous season changes with no variation. 

Even the house is graying, she notices as she parks in front of it. What was once so bright and exciting is dreary and depressing now. 

Life is better in L.A. With the bustling city full of life, the fast paced jobs. The cameras that follow her everywhere she fucking goes. The friends that drag her to parties on the weekend and abandon her after a photo. The too tight dresses that once felt glamorous but feel like a tight cage now. 

Her bedroom is the same as she left it. Artwork strung up on the walls by the hundreds. Polaroids of a different Clarke. Surrounded by smiling people. 

This life made her happy once, but it couldn’t after a certain point. Clarke was suffocating under the watchful eyes of neighbors, the gossip spread around like sermons on a Sunday. The expectation to follow in her mom's footsteps of local politics, or perhaps she’d go into law like her father. Covering tiny cases in a tiny town with nothing important ever happening. 

So she got the hell out. 

It was supposed to be better in L.A.

It was better in L.A.

No it wasn’t. 

But no one knew the difference between a real Clarke smile and her Hollywood smile anymore, so it didn’t matter. 

Well. 

He always knew the smiles she was faking, would wrap his arms around her, rock back and forth until she admitted what she was feeling, or tackled her into laughing. 

He’d text her for the first few months. In the morning as the sun yawned awake. The tabloids came out and then-

_ Are you okay? _

_ You look good, Princess.  _

_ L.A. suites you.  _

_ When are you coming to visit?  _

_ How’s filming going? _

_ How are your co-stars? _

_ Did you get home safe last night? _

_ Clarke, call me back.  _

She’d been the one to break up with him. Well, it wasn’t really a breakup. She’d left without telling him. But eventually, they’d talked. He had fought for her. And she had dropped years of memories and smiles in the name of a bigger life. Distance, and all that. 

He’d been so damn angry. Insisting that she was giving up on him before he was ready to be done. 

“I’ll come visit you. Hell, I’ll move to L.A. with you. Don’t do this Clarke.”

“You’re a coward, you know that? You can’t escape this.”

Arms around her as she packed her life up in her Altima. “I’m not giving up on us. I’m not giving up on you.”

“Call me when you get in. Call me on the drive if you want.”

_ Please text me back.  _

~~

Octavia finds out she’s in town before she even wakes up from her nap. 

Bellamy knows, then. 

She ignores her phone, seconds away from smashing it on a good day, her patience worn even thinner today. 

Grabs her keys from the hook downstairs. 

Parks between the old Methodist church, and the high school. 

It’s late on a Friday afternoon, she should have been safe. 

“Clarke?” 

And there he is. 

Six years apart. 

Goddamn. 

“Bellamy.” She trails off, not sure what to say. “Hi.” A small, awkward wave. 

The love of her life, standing there, in all his glory. 

He fucking smiles, dropping the bag from his shoulder before he sweeps her up in his arms. 

Six. years. 

He still smells the same, that scent that reminds her she’s home. It’s morning in their old apartment, burrowing down into the sheets as he got up. It’s coffee placed on her nightstand before he leaves, a kiss on her brow. Texts about who was grabbing dinner that night. It’s that goddamned ring that she wore for so long. It’s tears racing down her cheeks as she packed up everything of hers from their little apartment and moved back to her parents house. 

It’s those roses he bought her, showing up on the doorstep, begging her to come home. 

She leans into it, letting it consume her. 

“Did O tell you I was still at the school?” 

Such an innocent question, what a shame she’d have to break his heart again. 

“I thought you would be gone.” Honesty. Perhaps if she had offered it to him six years ago, she might still be here. His face drops. “I was just going to walk around for a bit.” He frowns. 

“I’ll walk with you then.” 

She acquiesces. If she fights, he’ll fight back just as hard. 

And she’s so tired. 

There hasn’t been any fight left in her for years now. 

“I’m teaching APUSH now.” He fills the air, and she prepares herself for a story like the ones he mumbled to her as she laid in bed, once. “Well, I have been for the last two years. It’s great. It was really stressful the first year but thankfully-” He trails off. Her heart aches to ask. But he pushes forward, not offering a glimpse into that year. “It’s easier now. The students are great. Nothing like you, when we were in school,” he teases. She smiles. When was the last time she let herself smile?

“God, I cared so much about my grades. I never even ended up at those ridiculous ivy schools I swore I was going to.”

“No, you didn’t.”

She stayed home, instead, pursuing her art. Bellamy got his degree online, both of them working their asses off to support Octavia after Aurora died. 

Together, they had done everything together. Until she left. 

They had been a family in every sense of the word. Clarke moving in with them a few months after graduation, packing lunches for her, while Bellamy did the actual cooking. Both of them were working two jobs, on top of Bellamy’s classes. 

They were exhausted at the end of every day. But they were happy. 

He goes on, telling her about his students, filling the air with stories the entirety of their walk. Tells her how much he loves it. Indirectly anyways. If it wasn’t clear to her when he was getting his degree, and doing his first year of teaching before she left, it’d be clear in the way he talks about it. His eyes sparkle, his hands moving constantly. He always was an animated talker. 

Eventually, they circle back to her car, he opens the door for her, leaning on it once she sits inside.

“You should come over for dinner tonight. Octavia’s bringing Lincoln and Liam over.” Her husband and her son. She’s never met them. 

She declines. 

If Raven’s to be believed, he's still in their apartment. The one they got after Octavia graduated. 

And if she goes there, she’s never going back. She’s got contracts to fulfill, filming scheduled for Tuesday. 

She goes home, helps her mom with dinner. Puts an old vinyl on the turntable they brought down from her room. 

Bellamy bought her this vinyl for her birthday one year. They’d slow dance in the kitchen to it. 

Her parents ask about L.A., never asking too much. They haven’t really talked since Christmas a few years ago. She sends gifts to the house sometimes. Offered to buy her dad that car he’d always wanted. He’d declined, saying he’d rather have his little girl come home. 

She asks about her mom’s work as the mayor. Abby goes on about a grant they passed to build a new library. Her dad talks about the cases he’s working.

They’re heading to bed by 9pm. There’s some comfort in life ending before midnight. There’s also fear. Vulnerability. She doesn’t even hit 10 pm before she’s throwing her suitcase in the car, no idea where she’s going. For a while, she convinces herself she’s going home.

Home. Such an arbitrary word, anymore. 

Clarke has no home. She has an apartment in L.A., empty save for the bare necessities. She has hotels booked for her all around the world during filming and press tours. 

In reality, however, she hasn’t had a home since she packed her things up in boxes and ran away. 

Home. Bellamy. 

And that is where she drives. 

Gravity. One constant in her world. Sadness. Another constant. 

Bellamy, catching her when she falls. A constant she hasn’t had for years. But even now, after she’s taken his heart in her hands and crushed it, twice over, he still opens the door and wraps her in his arms. 

~~

She wakes up in the past. Wakes up in the same sheets she shared with Bellalmy. Wakes up with him wrapped around her. 

She turns around in his arms, feeling his arms tighten around her. For the first time in years, she feels safe. 

He mumbles into her hair. She falls back asleep. 

Saturday is bliss. For an entire day, they play pretend. 

She curls up next to him on the couch, reads through essays as he grades. Presses kisses to his cheek from time to time. Drifts off a few hours in.

“Babe, wake up.” The tv is on in the background, and his papers are on the coffee table. He’s smiling, and her heart bursts. 

“Hi.” 

He smiles, handing her a plate with lunch on it. 

If she didn’t know better, she’d think she was living her life from six years ago. 

Why he let her back into his life so easily, fitting her in like the last piece in a puzzle you thought was lost, she will never understand. But she has long since known she has not once deserved Bellamy Blake’s love.    
They laze around the rest of the afternoon, The Office on the tv, somehow picking up right where they were when she left. 

But it’s only a matter of time before they have to talk. Playing pretend works for children on a playdate. This is real life.

Thus, things fall apart the next day.

Clarke knows she has to leave, knows she can’t live in this fantasy forever. 

They’re making breakfast when she brings it up. 

“I have to go back tomorrow.” He drops the egg he’s holding. 

“No, you don’t.” Tightens his grip on the spatula he picks up. 

“Yes, I do. I have a job, Bellamy.” He doesn’t turn around as he pushes the eggs around the pan. 

“Then quit.” A beat. How simple, in his mind. To up and leave the life she’s built for the last six years. Leave the parties and the non stop filming schedules for weeks on end. Leave the faked social media posts. Leave the people that pull her aside as she walks down the goddamn sidewalk, begging for a photo. 

“There’s contracts in play.” 

“If you go back you aren’t _ ever  _ coming home and you know that. You didn’t come home for six goddamn years Clarke. Do you know how much changes in that time?” He turns around, turning the stovetop off, battle face on. “I dated Gina while you were gone. Fucked a couple people too. I’m not sitting around waiting for you forever.”

It hurts, more than she wants to admit. She didn’t ask him to wait. Made it clear she wanted to move on. 

“God, if I wanted to know your dating history I would’ve asked.” It’s not even an argument, the only weapon left in her arsenal. “I didn’t ask you to wait for me. I figured you would move on.” She grits it out. 

Because even as she breaks his heart, her own is tearing in two. And it’s all her fault, and she knows that. But there’s something in her that can’t let her stay. Something begging her to leave, tugging her back. There’s ghosts here. 

Things she never told him, never told anyone. Things she suffered silently. 

Things that don’t make what she’s doing okay. But they fucked her over and she’s never been the same since, and probably never will be. 

“Don’t go.” And his face is scarcely stoic and he’s shutting down and she’s losing him again. She shakes her head. 

“This is just how things are, Bell.”

He strides toward her, roughly taking her face in between his hands, kissing her as though it’s an extension of the fight. His hands go to her ass, her thighs, lifting her onto the counter. Her hands grab at his shirt, pulling it off, going for his belt next. 

He stops her, unbuttoning her shirt, throwing the sleeves down her arms, roughly pulling her jeans open. 

It’s a fight. A physical formation of the words they throw at each other like knives, no worry for their impact. 

And it’s over oh so quick. He pulls back from her, shame coloring his face. 

This is it. 

This is the scene in those movies she stars in, the one that makes or breaks them. Tension hanging in the air, thick. There might be tears on her face. She’s so used to them, she hardly notices when she’s crying anymore. 

“So?” His face an echo of the physical pain in her chest. 

“I’m sorry,” and it comes out like a defeated sigh. If his face is the pain in her chest, the words are the emptiness of her soul. The ache that planted there and took up residence, took up her life. Blossomed like the ugliest of trees. 

“Get out, then.” She nods, but before she closes the door, god, she has to ask. 

“What did you think was going to happen?”

He glares at her, but answers. “I thought I might be enough for you again.”

And that’s that. She’s leaving the only person who’s ever felt like home. Again. 

It’s the part she plays in life. And she knows better than to tempt fate by staying. 

**Author's Note:**

> I'm on twitter [here](https://twitter.com/firrehearrt) if you'd like to scream with me


End file.
